10. Minors 68 »I don’t want to stay here longer. There are so many people, it is very dirty and cold.«202 S.A. from Iraq was also registered as adult born at the 1.1.1992. »My family sent a fax with my real age here to the prison. Since the one month that I am here I have not washed myself because the water is so cold that we cannot even drink it. I am very afraid here because people are fighting inside the cell. I have some place to sleep, but when families are coming I give them my place and sleep in a sitting position.«203 Unaccompanied minors that are arrested in the police direction of Orestiada are either first detained for a few days in one of the smaller border guard stations such as Neo Chimonio or directly detained in Fylakio detention centre. In the border guard stations usually they are held for a period up to one week and in most cases in mixed detention. In Fylakio detention centre male unaccompanied minors are held usually in cell two even if the number exceeds the capacity. Sometimes they are held in other cells in mixed detention (July, October 2011). In cases of wrong assessment of the age minors are held in mixed detention with adults. In cases of accompanied minors, they are held together with at least one family member, sometimes with both in mixed detention in order not to be separated. Female accompanied and unaccompanied minors are held together with the women in cell 7. The Special Rapporteur on torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (CPT) Manfred Nowak stated in his report of March 2011: »[…] This vulnerable group is at risk to be exposed to various forms of ill-treatment including sexual abuse when not properly separated from adults.« (p. 20f) Anyway, ill-treatment has been reported repeatedly also by minors detained in cell two and concerns physical and / or psychological abuse by the authorities. The detention conditions in Fylakio are unbearable and suffer from various inadequacies. First of all there is no procedure of informing the minors about their rights and asylum or family reunification procedures. The cells are usually overcrowded. They lack ventilation or proper windows. There are no furniture’s, no personal space or products of personal hygiene are available. Two, three or four minors have to share occasionally one bed. The once sharing a bed at the upper bunk bed have reported to constantly fall on 202 O.A. from Iran; December 19, 2010 – Soufli 203 S.A. from Iraq; December 19, 2010 – Soufli the floor causing injuries on their bodies. Others sleep on cardboards from the food packages or on mattresses on the floor. There is no appropriate access to medical aid or to the phones. There is no yarding or access to leisure activities and education such as should be provided for children in their age. The one bathroom is shared by 40-120 minors according to the number of detained minors and thus, is permanently out of order due to problems in the drainage. Also the toilettes do not work, being dirty and the sewage water running into the cell without any means to clean. Apart from the clothes they wear there is no additional supply for appropriate clothing to protect themselves from the cold or the heat. As a result the minors suffer from outbursts of colds and fevers as well as skin diseases. The inhuman detention conditions respectively affect the psychological state of mind of the minors. They show a high degree of stress, fear and desperation from the first days of detention, a situation that might cause a (re-)traumatisation of the unaccompanied children. Older minors express their psychological pressure in self-injuries, or internalise them through depressions and disorientation / mental disorder that become tenser the longer they are detained. A.H. from Syria is 15 years old. When we meet him he has already spent two months in detention. »I am afraid because there is a lot of noise. People get annoyed when they are not allowed to use the phone and they hit the bars to protest. The officers insult us and give us bad names. When they want to punish somebody they lock him in the telephone room. They have also locked me in that room for six hours once. They take the ones who protest and put them out in the snow. I have no shoes, the ones I wear to come and see you belong to somebody else. I borrowed them. My injuries (at his neck) draw from a fight I had about a shampoo. I had not taken a shower since two months. Anyway, there is no water now. We are fighting also about the beds.«204 Y.I. (16) from Syria was registered in the beginning as adult. He tells us that the screening took place without interpreter. From Fylakio he was transferred to Venna and then back to Fylakio. He shares his cell with 90 adults. Q.A. from Afghanistan is only 12 years old. When we meet him at March 1st when he had spent already 85 days in detention. »I have no mom and no dad. They died. I was working in Iran and in Turkey in order to have the money to come here.« 204 A.H. from Syria; December 20, 2010 – Fylakio